T-Mobile Users Surprised That Company’s Promise Of No Price Hikes Wasn’t Real

We’ve noted repeatedly how T-Mobile simply hasn’t been the same company since its controversial 2020 merger with Sprint. All of the pre-merger concerns deal critics warned about came true, whether it was 9,000 layoffs, worse service, or higher wireless prices. Long gone is the company’s John Legere-era pretense that it was ever seriously interested in being the pro-consumer alternative to Verizon and AT&T.

One study recently found that U.S. wireless price competition stopped completely dead in its tracks immediately after the deal, leaving the U.S. with some of the highest mobile prices in the developed world. T-Mobile also recently raised prices on most of its plans by around $2 to $5, including on customers who long believed they were on a price-locked plans that couldn’t be increased.

The original 2017 promotional press release proclaimed that T-Mobile contracted customers on their One plans customers “keep their price until THEY decide to change it” and that “T-Mobile will never change the price you pay for your T-Mobile One plan.” Except like most of T-Mobile’s promises recently, customers are learning that’s not true.

Annoyed users at Reddit filed a complaint with the FCC about the company’s recent price hikes, and got a response first blaming the price hikes on “inflation” (read: consolidation and muted competition) then pointing out that what users thought was a “price lock” isn’t actually one.

Apparently, T-Mobile had buried some fine print in the program guidelines stating that by a “price lock,” T-Mobile meant something else entirely. The restrictions, included in a FAQ that no longer exists (archived version here), technically stated that should T-Mobile raise rates, they’d agree to pay these customers final month of their bill if users cancelled service and they contacted T-Mobile within 60 days.

Users on Reddit say they saw no clear mention of these restrictions on any of their bills, and there’s ongoing debate over when, whether, or how well T-Mobile informed anybody of these limits. Based on this 2017 forum discussion spotted by Ars Technica, users were supposed to have read this FAQ that again, no longer exists.

T-Mobile this week was also criticized by the National Advertising Division (a fairly toothless industry self-regulatory apparatus) for basically making the same empty “price lock” promise related to its home 5G wireless broadband service:

“To avoid conveying a misleading message, NAD recommended that T-Mobile discontinue the “Price Lock” claim or modify it to explain, as part of the main claim, that “Price Lock” is a policy that promises customers a free month of home internet service if T-Mobile raises the monthly price and the consumer promptly notifies T-Mobile that they are cancelling their service.”

This is all very convoluted and stupid and highly representative of the U.S. telecom industry, and what it tries to pass off a customer service and competition. And this was an idea technically born back in the era when T-Mobile had a reputation for being marginally pro consumer (which we pointed out at several points over the years was often already highly performative in the first place).

Now that U.S. wireless sector competition has been weakened via pointless consolidation, these sort of weasel-worded restrictions will only get worse.